“Once we went to the Pretzel hut at the petting zoo, while I held a bunny.” said Forest.

“Seriously; that’s you earliest memory?” Kelsey said.

“Like you could do any better?” said Hallie coming to her boyfriend’s defense.

“It’s when my mom took me to Ella’s deli and got me an ice cream cone and I rode the merry go round.”

“What about you Draya?” Shane prompted.

“I think it would have to be when I got my first doll, I was about three maybe four years old and it was my birthday, I had opened all my presents when my father pulled out a surprise gift. I tore off the wrapping paper and opened the box quickly to reveal the doll. She had blond hair and blue eyes like me, she wore a beautiful pink silk evening gown and she had come all the way from England.”

“Sounds lovely.” I said.

“What about you darling?” She asked.

“Well I don’t know if it’s necessarily my earliest but, I remember once Shane and I were at my grandmothers house and were playing in the backyard. It had to have been late fall or early winter and we were just running around chasing each other and suddenly for some reason I just stop and looked up and in the apple tree was a single bright red apple even though there were no other apples in the tree. I pointed it out to Shane. We decided to go into my grandmothers garage, which we were aloud to do because if it wasn’t snowing yet my grandma left her car in the driveway and my cousin and I could use the garage as a sort of play house, anyway we went in the garage and got a snow shovel and knocked the apple out of the tree and we took it inside to show our parents. I remember that it had an odd shape it wasn’t round like most of the apples that came from my grandma’s tree and I think there was a worm in it too.”

“Ewwww.” all my friends said in unison.

“Ok moving on, I get to ask the next group question. Favorite color and why?” Tracy asked.

The group collectively groaned at the dreaded favorite color question except for me the answer was an easy one so I spoke up.

“Favorite is blue and the reason blue is my favorite is because when I was in kindergarten I realized that I didn’t have a favorite color so one day when I was finger painting I looked at all the colors and thought that blue was very pretty and so decided that blue was my favorite color.”

“That’s it? You just decided that’s what it’s going to be and that was that?” Forest said

“Hey babe that’s being a little harsh! Why don’t you tell them what you’re favorite color is?” Hallie said.

Forest sighed “Okay fine, it’s green because my favorite nanny growing up always wore green nail polish.”

“What’s yours Draya?” I asked.

“Red because it’s bold and it makes a statement.”

Then Shane spoke up, “I am going to say brown like earth because it makes me think of gardening and I do love all the vegetables that I harvest from my garden.”

We went around the circle each member of our group stating their favorite color and the reason behind it.

Then it was Shane’s turn to ask “Ok, you are going to lose all your memories but one which one would you like to remember? Hallie you answer first. “

“I am going to say it would be my first boyfriend Johnny Johnson.”

“Hallie your first boyfriend was in the fifth grade.” I pointed out

“I know that he gave me a red ring pop and asked me to be his girlfriend then a week later his dad got promoted and he had to move because of his dad’s stupid job. I never saw him again.”

“That’s not a real relationship Hallie.” I said

“It was real to me!”

“You never even kissed him.” Raquel added.

“Of course not, boys still had cooties when I was 9.”

“If you still believed boys had cooties then why did you agree to be his girlfriend?” Tracy asked.

“He gave me candy jewelry, like I was going to say no to that.”

That made everyone in the group laugh.

“Tracy you’re turn what memory?” Shane asked.

“The day I found my VW bus. She had been gutted, nothing left in her but the steering wheel and she was more rust than paint but I knew she still had potential and I fell in love with her so I will never want to forget the day I found her.”

“Draya your turn and then Sarah.” said Shane.

“If I could only keep one memory it would be that night I met you darling.” Draya said looking at me smiling. “I still remember how beautiful I thought you looked, how sweet and innocent you were.”

“Were? As in past tense? Are you saying that she’s not so innocent anymore?” Kelsey asked.

“Kelsey are you implying that our Sare Bear has lost her v-card already?” Hallie asked.

“Don’t forget we did walk in on them only day before yesterday.” Tracy reminded.

“And who knows how far they would have gone had we not shown up.” Added Raquel.

“God, it was barely second base; and FYI I am still a virgin thank you very much!” I said

“What would your memory be darling?” Draya asked. I think she was trying to break the tension.

“This year 4th of July at the beach especially the part where you and I went in the lake together after the fireworks.”

“Ah, yes that was quite enjoyable.”

“My turn…” Brian said “…and I would have to say it would be the first time I ever kissed Raquel.”

“Didn’t she punch you when you kissed her the first time ever?” Asked Tracy

“Yeah that’s right you two weren’t even a couple yet it was like the sixth grade at the school picnic.” Hallie confirmed

“But it didn’t deter me if anything it only made me adore her more.”

“Dude you are so whipped.” said Jeff

“Well I know what mine is…” said Shane “…the first time I had a brat.”

“Dude I thought we agreed we weren’t going to talk about that!” Brian exclaimed

Some of the people in the group laughed Raquel glared at him in annoyance “Boy why you gotta be so crude? I mean that’s just nasty!”

“It’s part of my charm and it’s just a joke. Shane knows that right bro?”

“Yeah I know; anyway the first brat I had was at a family reunion at lake farm park I took a bite of the brat and then got distracted by a snake that one of my relatives caught on a hike and when I took another bite I realized the brat was gone so I actually held the bun up and looked through it and said ‘where’d it go’ that’s when my dad pointed out that it had fallen out of the bun on to the ground and being the little kid I was I asked ‘do I still have to eat it?’ My dad told me no and got me a new one.”

I remembered that day too although not for the reason Shane did but I was on the hike where the snake was caught. It was just a little common garter snake so it wasn’t even venomous and after showing it off a little while they let it go in a near by field and it slithered off no harm done. It was then that the game was interrupted by the phone ringing. “I’ll get it.” said Shane going into the kitchen to retrieve the phone moments later calling out “Tracy it’s the auto repair garage they want to talk to you.”

Tracy popped up like a jack in the box and bounded over to Shane who handed her the phone “Hello?”

…………………….

“Yes this is she.”

………………………

“It is that’s great!”

………………………..

“Um…hang on just a minute.” Tracy places her hand over the mouth piece and says “Shane the repair garage says my VW is all fixed up and ready to be picked up could you take me to go get it today?”

“Sure no problem.”

Tracy got a huge smile on her face then she put the receiver back to her ear and said “Yes I can come get it today.”

………………………………

“Yes thank you, good bye.”

Tracy, Jeff said Shane left not long after that. The rest of us occupied our time watching never ending story. We all cried when Atreyu loses his horse Artax in the swamps of sadness and I snuggled closer to Draya when it got to the part with Gmork. I know it’s fake and you can totally tell that it is but for some reason ever since seeing it as a kid Gmork scares me. Draya put her arms around me and held me until the scary Gmork was dead.

By this time Tracy Jeff said Shane had returned.

Shane came in asking who’s hungry. Tracy and Jeff however were still out side. According to Shane Tracy wanted to check her engine because she didn’t trust her VW with any body but herself. I decided to go out in the yard to see what was going on.

“I am telling you love bug the guys at the garage know what they’re doing your VW is fine.”

“And I am telling you that nobody knows this old gal like I do and there is nothing wrong with double checking.”

“I didn’t say that there was anything wrong with double checking only that I feel like it’s unnecessary.”

“You just don’t get it I practically rebuilt this old gal from the ground up you don’t know the time I spent the hours scouring online and digging through junk yards and salvage yards and anywhere else I could think of to find original parts and sticking to bringing this old gal back to her former glory when others told me to give up, this is more than just a vehicle to me she’s like a person to me, I know how that sounds but I put so much time and effort into it so it’s like a part of me.”

“Tracy I understand, hell my dad and I are still trying to find parts to a sixty seven Chevy impala we want to rebuild so I get it and can’t wait until we finish it partly because that’s going to be my car and partly because it’s going to be something my dad and I put together ourselves but that doesn’t mean I am going to pop the hood and check the engine every time I take it in for a oil change.”

“That just proves that you don’t understand!” Tracy exclaimed stomping her foot crossing her arms and turning her back to him.

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this you’re being completely unreasonable!” He shot back before storming off past me and into the house. Tracy was still standing with her arms crossed and back to me. I approached her slowly but also made sure to make plenty of noise while doing so, so I didn’t sneak up and startle her. “Trouble in paradise?” I asked.

“Am I being totally crazy and unreasonable?”

“No you’re really passionate when it comes to your VW and personally I admire that but you also should cut Jeff some slack he’s a nice guy and he cares about you and he doesn’t know what you went through just to get the vehicle even though it was just a shell you used all your savings and even convinced your dad to chip in and dip into your college fund to pay for it he wasn’t there digging through the junk yards and salvage yards with you like me and Hallie and Raquel and Kelsey were so of course he doesn’t understand but in time I think he will and he’ll come to love this old gal as much as you do.”

“You really think so?”

“Yeah but what I think doesn’t really matter what matters is what you think, what you believe and if you believe he will one day understand then good and anyway I have a feeling that the relationship you two have is gonna out last any car either of you will ever own.”

Tracy then turned to look at me and smiled “Look at you being all wise.”

“I have my moments.”

“You think I should go in and forgive Jeff?”

“Actually let’s hang out here for a bit at least until Shane calls us in to eat. Let Jeff stew for a little bit and only forgive him if he apologizes first well at least 24 hours if he hasn’t apologized by then forgive him anyway because let’s face it boys can be clueless sometimes but Jeff’s a keeper.”

We sat on the front porch steps as the nocturnal world slowly came to life. We saw the hunched back silhouettes of raccoons, heard the rustling of leaves as a fox darted stealthily through the trees and watched the Great Horned Owl that lived in the attic of my cosine’s barn/garage take flight. It’s massive shadow passing over us. Then we heard the high pitched howling of coyotes in the distance. It was at that point we chose to go in. Shane just got done cooking 30 pounds of whole chicken wings. Don’t ask me how he did it but somehow he managed to deep fry over 130 whole chicken wings. They were the most delicious chicken wings I ever tasted, I mean talk about finger licking good. He served them with a baked potato and green beans and of course biscuits. In my opinion it was better than KFC could ever hope to be. After dinner I sort of accidentally on purpose overheard Jeff apologizing to Tracy about earlier and that he knows how much she cares about the VW and he could be more understanding. Of course Tracy forgave him and promised to try to cut him more slack in the future. We concluded the night with a game of Cards Against Humanity A party game for horrible people. It’s like an X rated version of apples to apples and always gets everyone laughing and yeah you have to let your mind go to the gutter for awhile but you still have fun. At one point Draya had to read the cards for Phil because he was laughing too hard and couldn’t stop laughing long enough to read it himself.

Then we all crawl into bed and I put my arms around Draya and pulled her close since it was my turn to be the big spoon and then drifted off to sleep.

THE END to be continued in the story titled Cars And Campfires ( Week In The Country)